Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX Overview

Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX will receive multiple updates in 2014.

The Dynamics CRM Online service and on-premises product will feature updates and fixes (either minor or major releases) twice a year, a departure from the previous plan that saw CRM Online receiving features more frequently than on-premises.

The current version, Dynamics CRM 2013, was released in Oct. 2013 to on-premises customers and rolled out to Dynamics CRM Online customers between Oct. 2013 and Jan. 2014. Dynamics CRM 2013 delivered new process-oriented sales user interface forms, iPad sales interface, and Yammer integration. It also delivered new features for both online and on-premises, including improved integration with Office 2013 and Exchange Server 2013.

Announced at the annual Convergence conference, Microsoft showed two “waves” of releases planned for 2014, expected in the second and fourth quarters. The first release is expected to finalize integration of NetBreeze (rebranded as Social Listening), which provides public social network monitoring, and MarketingPilot (rebranded as Dynamics Marketing), which manages marketing campaigns and measures results across multiple sales channels, including e-mail, the Web, and social networks. The second release is expected to see the integration of Parature’s cloud-based self-service capabilities and improvements to business process flows to handle complex processes.